Buying Canadian lithium firm part of China’s aim to dominate high-tech manufacturing, MPs told – By Anja Karadeglija (National Post) / January 26, 2022
‘How can Canada build a lithium supply chain or any other critical mineral for that matter, when it allows the assets of Canadian companies to be acquired’
China buying a Canadian lithium mining company is part of a wider strategy by the Chinese to become “dominant in global high-tech manufacturing,” an analyst told a parliamentary committee Wednesday.
“Securing access to lithium and other critical mineral reserves is essential to the achievement” of that industrial policy, said Jeff Kucharski, a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and adjunct professor at Royal Roads University.
China’s industrial policy “seeks to make China dominant in global high tech manufacturing,” and it aims include “mobilizing state-owned enterprises to acquire intellectual property, technologies and assets abroad, with the overall aim to surpass Western countries,” he said.